|
Volume 36, Number 2 |
Richardton, ND 58652 |
April 2008 |
Fr. Victor Feser has been a professor of mathematics at the University of Mary for more than 25 years. He is pictured in front of his apartment in south Bismarck.
F I R E I N T H E H O L E
The fire in the elevator shaft of the Harold Miller Center
(Science Hall)University of Mary, Sept. 25, 2007
A personal narrative by Fr. Victor Feser, O.S.B.
I was teaching my History of Mathematics class in room 317 (third floor) of the building. My students were Kayla Block, Amanda Hendrickson, Bill Johnson, Nate Speidel, and Val Vetter; Nate Rengel happened to be absent. Because people had been talking in the hall earlier, I had closed the door.
Near the end of the period, around 1:45 pm, I smelled smoke and started to go to the window, to look out onto the parking lot, but the students quickly noticed a wisp of smoke coming in under the door. Since there had been no alarm or other sound, I didn’t expect anything serious, so I opened the door to see what was happening. This hallway is only about 8 feet wide, and the walls are white, but I couldn’t see to the opposite wall: there was nothing but black smoke. To the right, there are two large outside windows about 20 feet away: I couldn’t see them at all. I closed the door! The students tell me I said “Yeah” or something like that.
Someone immediately reminded us to block the crack under the door; Kayla gave up her fine suede leather coat, someone else had another piece of fabric. Bill and others were on cell phones, calling 911 and probably other numbers. At some point I think we found out that there was fire in the elevator shaft, at the far end of the hall; certainly we didn’t know whether the flames were going anywhere.
Things got a little confused for a while. Bill and Nate were speculating about jumping out the window and over to the roof of the Arno Gustin hallway. But that roof was at least 10 feet away horizontally. They also thought of climbing across the face of the building, to the next set of windows, closer to that hallway, but I really didn’t believe such a climb was possible.
Meantime people were working on the windows. (Nobody panicked, but clearly everyone was aware of the great danger, and someone said “We can die here” or something to that effect.) There were various objects in purses or pockets to turn the screws that held the screens on the inside of the windows, so Val and Amanda and I got the screens off. The windows themselves opened outward from the bottom, by a rod not much more than a foot long: those rods were a problem. We worked on them: Nate was able to unscrew something to detach one rod; Bill was able to use the other rod itself to break a piece of the frame and release the rod.
So now both the windows swung out several feet, with no obstruction. I wasn’t yet very keen on climbing out onto the sill, so I took one more look into the hall: the smoke was at least as thick as before, and now it felt very warm. I took a step into the hallway: the students tell me they could no longer see me! It was clear that we did not dare make a run for it. But by now smoke was starting to build up in the room, so we climbed out onto the sill after all. These sills were about 3’ by 4’, so each had room for three of us: Kayla, Bill, and I on one; Val, Amanda, and Nate on the other. We were in no danger of sliding off, and now we had fresh air.
Many people were on the far side of the parking lot; I believe some emergency vehicles were arriving about this time. We tried to attract attention; some people did see us, but did nothing—Bill claims that when he waved they waved back but didn’t come closer. Eventually Terry Anderson, on the lawn below, saw us and made some phone calls; and when firemen arrived with a ladder some minutes later, he led them around the building and into the interior courtyard, directly below our window. They set up the ladder and we descended safely.
The students thought about throwing down their backpacks, full of expensive texts and all their notes, but the firemen didn’t let them do so. The women did throw down their purses. A happy ending: the backpacks were salvaged that evening and in a day or two everyone had their stuff back, slightly smelling of smoke but undamaged. Second happy ending: Kayla’s fine coat will be cleaned or replaced by the University.
We were led out of the courtyard and across the Clairmont passage: at that
point I could for the first time hear the fire alarms—they were not working on second
or third floor. And when the fire was first discovered, at least two people had
run the halls, yelling for people to get out, but none of us could hear the sound
because the door was too sound-
The rescuers handed us off to health personnel, to check for smoke inhalation: the students were quickly released, but I had inhaled a little more, so I was given a more thorough checkup in an ambulance out front, but then released also.
Events after this point are pretty much a matter of public record, so my personal narrative ends here.
